4.6: Other Historic Figures

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Douglas Cohen
CUNY Brooklyn College via Brooklyn College Library and Academic IT

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St. Augustine (354–430): early Christian thinker and writer.

Boethius (ca. 480–524): Roman statesman and philosopher, author of The Consolations of Philosophy and De institutione musica, a treatise on numerical properties of musical sounds and the relationship between mathematical proportions and human morality.

Mohammed (590–632): founder of Islam.

Avicenna (980–1037): Islamic philosopher, scientist, and physician.

Anselm (1033–1109): Christian philosopher; propounded the ontological argument for God’s existence.

Averroes (1126–1198): Islamic philosopher and commentator on Aristotle.

Maimonides (1125–1204): Jewish philosopher; author of Guide to the Perplexed.

Marco Polo (1254–1324): Venetian traveler to China 1271–1295.

Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1225–1274): Catholic scholar and philosopher.

Dante Alighieri (1265–1321): Italian poet, author of The Divine Comedy (1307), a cosmology of medieval Catholicism.

Giotto (ca. 1268–1337): Italian painter; frescoes of biblical scenes in churches of Florence and Padua.

Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) (1304–1374): Italian poet; sonnets of idealized love.

Boccacio (1313–1375): Italian poet, author of the Decameron (1353), 100 witty and often bawdy allegorical tales set in the time of the Black Death in Florence.

Geoffrey Chaucer (ca. 1340–1400): English poet and writer, author of Canterbury Tales (1387), stories of courtly romance, deceit, and greed related by 30 people from different segments of English medieval society on a pilgrimage to Canterbury Cathedral.

Jan van Eyck (ca. 1390–1441): Flemish painter; domestic scenes painted in oils.